Chapter 29

In the 14-15th cent. these fancies are carried to excess, and degenerate into mere allegories: my ladies, the Virtues, instead of coming in, one at a time, where they are wanted to deepen the impressiveness of the story, intrude themselves into the plot of the whole story, or at least of long formal introductions and poems. And yet there is no denying, that in these preludes, nearly all of one traditional pattern, which even Hans Sachs is excessively fond of, there occur now and then shrewd and happy thoughts, which must be allowed to possess a mythical significance. By degrees all the devices of poetry were so used up, the art was so denuded of her native resources, that no other expedient was left her; out Mythology will have to remember this, and in stray features here and there recognise [mangled but] still palpitating figures even of the heathen time. When the poet has missed his way in a wooded wild, and beside the murmuring spring comes upon a wailing wife, who imparts advice and information, what is this but the apparition of a wish-wife or valkyr, who meets the hero at the forest fount, and makes a covenant with him? And that dwarfs or giants often come between, as servants of these wild women, and conduct to their dwelling by a narrow path, this also seems no invention, but founded on old tradition.

Out of many examples I will select a few. MS. 2, 136b: Ich kam geriten ûf ein velt vür einen grüenen walt, dâ vant ich ein vil schœn gezelt (tent), dar under saz diu Triuwe, si wand ir hende, si bôt ir leit, si schrê vil lûte.....'mîn schar ist worden al ze kleine (my followers are grown far too few).' Cod. Berol. 284 fol. 57-8: By a steep cliff in the greenwood lives Virtue, and on a high rock beside it her sister dame Honour, with whom are Loyalty, Bounty, Meekness, Manhood, Truth and Constancy, bewailing the death of a count of Holland. Ls. 1, 375 (a charming tale): On a May morning the poet is roused from sleep by a passionate cry, he starts up, goes into the forest, and climbs over steep rocks, till high up he reaches a delectable flowery vale, and in the dense thicket spies a little wight, who rates him soundly and wishes (like Laurin) to impound him for trampling his lady's roses. When pacified at last, he tells him that there in a stronghold not to be scaled lives dame Honour with five maidens of her household, named Adeltrût, Schamigunt, Zuhtliebe, Tugenthilt and Mâzeburc (the ancient Hiltia, Gundia, Drût, p. 422). Ls. 3, 83: A woman on a pilgrimage, having lost her way in the wooded mountains, comes to a little blue house, in which there sits an ancient dame clothed in blue, who receives her kindly. This good dame calls herself the Old Minne, she still wears the colour of truth, but now she is banished from the world. The pilgrim journeys on to the tent of Young Minne, who like her playmate Wankelmut (fickle-mind, a fem. formed like Frômuot) wears checkered garments, and is busy entering men and women's names in a book (like the parca and wurd, p. 406 n.), and proclaims the new ways of the world. In the end Old Minne declares that she hopes some day to appear again among men, and drag the false Minne openly to justice. A song in MsH. 3, 437ª describes how dame Honour sits in judgment, with Loyalty, Charity and Manhood on her right, Shame, Chastity and Moderation on her left. P. Suchenwirt xxiv.: The poet follows a narrow path into a great forest, where a high mountain rises to the clouds: a dwarf meets him at the mouth of a cave, and informs him of a court to be held in that neighbourhood by dame Constancy and Justice. He goes on his way, till he comes to the judgment-seat, before which he sees Minne appear as plaintiff, followed by Moderation, Chastity, Shame, and Modesty, he hears her cause pleaded and decided, but frau Minne spies him in his lurking-place. H. Sachs i. 273b: In May time, in the depth of the forest, on a lofty moss-grown rock, the poet is met by a hairy wood-wife, who guides him to the tower of dame Charity, shows him through her chambers, and at last brings him before the high dame herself, who sends him away not empty-handed. The rock-dwelling in the wooded mountain seems an essential part of nearly all these narratives: it is the ruined castle in which the 'white lady' appears, it is the tower of Veleda, Menglöð, Brunhild (p. 96 n.). Are the companions, 'playmates,' by whom dame Honour is attended, as the highest virtue by the lower ones, to be traced back to a retinue of priestesses and ministering virgins of the heathen time? to valkyrs and messengers of a goddess? Dame Era, Aiza (p. 414n.) may go a long way back by that very name: in the story from P. Suchenw. xxiv. 68 is uttered the notable precept 'êre all frouwen fîn!' honour all gentle dames (p. 398; and see Suppl.).

As a counterpart, there are personifications of Vices too, but far fewer and feebler, as our antiquity in general does not go upon dualism, and in higher beings the idea of the good preponderates. Besides, when malignant daemons do appear, they are by preference made masculine: zorn (anger), hass (hate), neid (envy); though the Lat. ira and invidia are fem., and odium remains neuter, like our general word for vice (laster) against the fem. virtue (tugend). It surprises me that no pesonification of 'sünde' f., sin in the christian sense, is to be found in MHG. poets, for the word itself may lie very near the old heathen Sunja (p. 310), inasmuch as defence and denial includes fault and sin; the notion of 'crying sins, deadly sins' is Biblical. Neither does 'schuld' f. (causa, debitum, crimen) put in a personal appearance, the part she played of old (p. 407) seems totally forgotten; what lends itself more readily to personification in Schande f. (dedecus). It would be hard to find the negatives 'unêre, unmilde, unstæte' treated as persons, and we only meet with Untriuwe in Frauenlob 253, 5. 14; frou Unfuoge (unfitness) was quoted p. 311 n., but if, as is likely, the positive Gefuoge contains fundamentally a physical sense, it hardly falls under the category of vices, but like Unsælde (p. 878) marks the negation of a state. In the Bible Guiot (Méon 2, 344) the three fair maids Charité, Verité, Droiture, are confronted by three old and ugly ones, Traïson, Ypocrisie, Simonie; virtue is always painted fair and godlike, vice foul and fiendish (see Suppl.).

The personification of Rumour is of high antiquity. It was very natural to think of it as a divine messenger sent out through the air, to listen to all that goes on, and bring tidings of it to the highest gods, who have to know everything. To the Greeks Ossa (voice, sound) was Dioj aggeloj, Il. 2, 93; ossa ek Dioj , Od. 1, 282:

Ossa d ar aggeloj wka kata ptolin wceto panth, Od. 24, 413.
Another name is Fhmh, Dor. Fama, to whom, says Pausanias i. 17, 1, as well as to Eleoj, Aidwj and Ormh, there was an altar erected at Athens; the word is conn. with fhmi, fhmij, as the Lat. Fama is with fari and famen (in effamen); I incline to refer the AS. bême, tuba, to the same, preferring that spelling to the commoner býme. As there would otherwise be nothing in the Edda parallel to this Fama, it is perhaps allowable to find her in the goddess Gnâ, Sn. 38, whom Frigg sends out on her errands (at eirindum sînum) to all parts of the world; through air and sea she rides on a steed named Hôfvarpnir (who flings out the hoof), she will neither fly nor drive, but ride through the air, and all highflown things are said to 'gnæfa:' our Gotfried in a song puts 'gnaben' by the side of 'flying, flowing, trotting, creeping.' Hôfvarpnir may have been a winged horse, (15) but to the Greeks and Romans Fama herself was winged, and this appears to me to have arisen out of the notion of a bird that bore tidings as a divine messenger: 'ex ipsa caede volucrem nuntium mittere' in Cic. pro Roscio 36 simply means the speediest intimation, conf. Pertz 2, 578: 'subito venit nuntius pennigero volatu.' In our folksongs birds do errands (p. 672), and Oðinn has two ravens for his chosen messengers, but their office could also be handed over to divine beings of secondary rank, as Zeus employs Iris and Ossa, and the notion of angel has arisen directly out of that of messenger. Virgil's famous description of Fama, small at first, but quickly growing to enormous size (Aen. 4, 173) with innumerable feathers, eyes, ears, and mouths, seems almost borrowed from the image of a bird getting fledged; at all events the St. Gall monk (Pertz 2, 742) delivers himself thus: 'cum fama de minima meisa (sup. p. 683) super aquilarum magnitudinem excresceret.' Other writers: 'daz mœre (news) dô vedere gewan, wîten fuor ez ze gazzen,' Mar. 144. 'alsus flouk Morgânes tôt, als ob er flücke wære,' so flew M.'s death as if it were fledged, Trist. 5483. 'ein bœse mœre wirt gar schiere vlücke,' ill news is soon fledged, Renn. 18210. Yet Veldeck, just where we might have expected an imitation of Virgil, has merely: 'dô daz mœre ûf brach---ûz quam---ûz spranc,' En. 1903-16-97, not giving it wings, though he does make it grow: 'daz mœre wahsen began,' 9185. 12575; conf. Geo. 521: 'diu mœre in der stunde (illico) wuohsen.' Most of the other poets confine themselves to the image of flight: 'leidiu niumâre (ill news) diu nu fliegent in diu lant,' Pf. Chuonr. 7544. 'daz mœre fluoc dô wîten,' Mar. 45; 'dô daz mœre chom geflogen' 214. 'dô flugen disiu mœre von lande ze lande,' Nib. 1362, 2; 'dô flugen diu mœre von schare baz ze schare' 1530, 1. 'ob diz mœre iht verre (far) flüge?' Wh. 170, 20. 'diu mœre flugen über daz velt,' Wigal. 2930. 'sô daz mœre ie verrer vliuget, sô man ie mêr geliuget,' the farther it flies, they tell more lies, Freid. 136, 3. 'mœre vliegent in diu lant,' Karl 116ª. (16) M. Neth. poets also make their fem. niemare fly: 'niemare ghevloghen,' Florîs 258; but often, like Veldeck above, they make her run or leap like started game: 'die niemare liep' 173; 'die niemare sal lopen' 1295; and with this agree the Dan. 'det springer nu saa vide,' DV. 1, 63, and perhaps the AS. 'blœd wîde sprang,' Beow. 36, if blæd (flatus, OHG. plât) may here be taken for fama. In a passage quoted above, p. 78, fama is imagined walking, and 'gressus suos retorquens.' Now, vivid as these representations are, it is not personification that lies at the bottom of them, as we may see by the vague neuter mœre, OHG. mâri; the OHG. mârida, Goth. mêriþa (us-iddja mêriþa is, exhlqen h akoh autou, Mark 1, 28) would have lent itself more readily to that, but MHG. had no mærde in use, though Latin writers undoubtedly retained fama, e.g. in Helmold 1, 65: 'interim volat haec fama per universam Saxoniam.' Hartmann in Er. 2515 personifies frowe Melde, while Tybo, a Dan. poet of the 17^th cent., more floridly names her Fyg-om-by (aestuans per terram, from fyge, ON. fiuka), and gives her a fiedreham, Nyerup's Digtek. 2, 185. Ovid in Met. 12, 30 seq. attributes to Fama a house with innumerable approaches, and this is elaborately imitated by Conrad in Troj. 179c. 180ª, only for fame he puts a masc. Liumet, OHG. hliumunt, our leumund (Gramm. 2, 343. Graff. 4, 1100), who together with his followers is winged, and flies forth, but signifies more the listening fama; conf. Goth. hliuma = auris, and Liumending = Favor in N. Cap. 51. To such male beings would correspond the Lat. rumor, of which we read in Isengr. 13: 'Rumor per saltus et arva tonans'; or the ON. qvittr: 'sâ kvittr flô î bygðum,' Fornm. sög. 9, 237 (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

15. Like Pegasus; conf. the O. Boh. gloss of Mater verb. 215: kridlatec (alatus) Pegasus equus Neptuni, qui 'fama' interpretatur. [Back]

16. 'Die æchtesal vlouc uber al;' 'ir echte vlouc in die lant,' Kaiserchr. 6406-79. [Back]